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Title: A Conflict of Loyalties
Author: Aramel (

aramel_calawen)
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: Double-drabble. A Sindarin OC's take on Thingol's ban of Quenya. Or, why Fingon was still shouting in Quenya at the Fifth Battle-- and why his soldiers, a good portion of whom must have been Sindarin, were answering him.

The message came bare days ago: No Sinda is to speak the tongue of the Noldor, and those who do so are to be held as traitors and slayers of kin unrepentant. What this meant was that we were to be deaf when addressed in Quenya, and to shun those who used it.

All of us here in Dor-lomin had heard the command, read by a herald from the Hidden Kingdom, and I could not help but be angry; for how could Thingol presume to command me? I never saw him, and the only claim he had to me was the fact that I was a Sinda. Yet I was born here, in Dor-lomin, and the lord I had sworn to, and whom I was esquire to, was Fingon the Valiant.

Now that same lord approached, and I rose from my seat. He shook his head and motioned at me. "Sit, please," he said in his native tongue, habitually, then caught himself, and hurriedly spoke in Sindarin "Ah-- I did not mean to offend--"

I would not shame him thus, and I suspected that many others would feel the same. "It is nothing," I said in Quenya, and smiled.

Apologies to

galadhir-- this bunny's been gnawing at me ever since I read Oak and Willow.